Just a Girl
by MzMalfoy
Summary: A brief meeting between Hermione and Sherlock, as seen by our favorite sociopath. Just a bit of fun.
1. Chapter 1

A/N:  
I own nothing but a heap of debt so these characters are clearly not mine. I just like to play with them.

So I'm not sure where this little nugget came from. I just happened to wonder what Sherlock would make of Hermione, if the magic would throw him off. Here is their brief meeting.  
Also- Sherlock contemplates that she may have been abused, he does it in just as callous a manner as you'd expect- please accept my apologies on his behalf for treating so sensitive a subject with no sympathy.

* * *

John had hidden the gun again. He must've taken it with him; John was incapable of hiding something in the flat if Sherlock actually wanted to find it. He'd spent an entire twenty minutes searching and had found nothing of interest.

What was he supposed to do now? The tongue needed two more days before the desired level of decomposition was reached and he'd just finished with his sulfuric acid experiment. Perhaps he should make an effort to not be in the flat when John returned from the clinic… he would undoubtedly complain about the smell. Sherlock rolled his eyes as he popped up from the sofa and fetched his jacket from the back of his chair. The smell _was_ quite bad though. Perhaps he should open a window? He nodded in self-appreciation, proud of the fact that he'd actually thought of something considerate to do for John. He opened the window above the sink and after another bit of inspiration crossed to open a second window next to his music stand. There. Cross-ventilation should reduce the sulfur odor to reasonable levels by the time John returned to Baker Street. Even the damp London air would be better than the stench, he could admit to himself. He reached for his scarf and Belstaff as he debated on where to go to evade John's probable and tedious wrath.

He could always go see if Molly had anything interesting in that he could liberate from her lab… he could also check in with some of his homeless network and get an update on the word on the street. He needed to make sure that his key man had whatever he deemed necessary; he hadn't seen him in over a week. The Network was an invaluable resource to him and if he had to part with a few pounds here and there to feed and clothe those who couldn't fend for themselves it was no great hardship. He probably should not let John know just how expensive the Network was, however. John was forever griping at him for not charging higher fees.

Mind made up to see his man, he flipped up his collar and trotted down the stairs. His exit was impeded, however, by a young woman carrying a large box. The box must contain something light, because it was cumbersomely large yet she bore its weight with ease.

She appeared to not yet notice him on the dimly lit stairs as she set the box down and turned to lock the door behind her. He came down the final steps as she turned back and finally caught sight of him. She started in surprise, her hand darted to the pocket of her trousers, then she froze.

He made his usual quick study of her. Unstyled hair, casually sturdy clothes, and lack of cosmetics aside from mascara suggested she was not overly concerned with appearance and likely kept mostly male friends for her close relationships. Females tended to dress for each other, always in competition. Fine lines between her eyes: marks of perpetual concentration or possibly grumpiness; her general demeanor screamed bookish though, so it concentration it was.

The cut of her clothing and hair, coupled with aforementioned fine lines said mid-twenties but her facial expression said older. As did the way she carried herself. The latter two were reminiscent of John, to be perfectly honest. Why? She clearly wasn't a doctor: no pens in her pocket, no haggard expression. Soldier? No tan, no combat training-toned muscles, posture not rigid enough. A violent past then? With her seen-too-much eyes... yes, certainly.

He moved on to the box. No written address, little tape: not a delivery. Quite large but not heavy: clothing or linens perhaps. She'd locked the door behind her. She was clearly the new tenant in flat C making her first trip with her belongings. Mrs. Hudson must be well pleased. He was glad his not-your-housekeeper-dear was now earning some income off of that flat. Not that he'd admit having any concern or affection for the silly woman.

He stepped to the side to observe her from a slightly different angle, narrowing his eyes as he got into his rhythm of deductions. She watched him only slightly warily but he hardly cared.

No ring or tan line: unmarried. No one helping her move: unattached, no close friends in town. Callus on fourth finger of her right hand: wrote longhand more often than used a computer. Very small handbag, slightly tatty and renting a one-room basement flat: tight on funds. No job? No, didn't fit the studiousness. Just finished school? Likely.

A young woman, likely a student or very recent graduate, and likely in possession of a violent past. Interesting. Was it interesting? Why was it interesting? He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes as he met her gaze. She watched him stoically but for one raised eyebrow. Mrs. Hudson must've prepared her. People who weren't expecting him got defensive and uncomfortable when he studied them this way. She appeared to be neither.

"You're Sherlock, then?" She broke the silence with a wry smile. He hummed an affirmative as he puzzled her out. "I'm Hermione, I'm-"

"Moving into C, yes. Obvious." He cut her off, why did people insist on incessantly stating what he could plainly see? He was stuck on her violent past; she met his gaze easily. Most people didn't care to do so, but other than slightly pink cheeks she appeared to have no trouble with it. Most abuse survivors tended to duck their heads and drop their gazes down, generally to the right, or look at a spot just behind the person to whom they were speaking. Not an abusive parent then? She appeared to be completely comfortable in a small, dimly lit space with a perfect stranger- a man of fairly large stature no less. Not a domestic abuse victim then… nor was it a sexual assault. What was it?

She made to twist her fingers together but aborted the movement as though unwilling to give evidence of unease. Not completely comfortable then. Hm. Perhaps it was emotional abuse and not physical….but her confidence appeared undamaged... "Well, if you're finished analyzing me I'll be going in." Her voice was quietly amused.

He blinked, grudgingly surprised that she had neither challenged him in an attempt to see if his deductions were correct nor been irritated at his scrutiny. No reaction at all? Was this building completely infested with _nice_ people? He shuddered mentally. Boring! It made him contemplate going back upstairs and shutting the windows to trap the fumes just to make someone properly angry. But no, he had things to do afterall.

"Quite." He said with a nod and abruptly brushed passed her, his thoughts moving on to the likely location of the head of his Network. The girl with the questionable past and wise eyes forgotten before he hit the kerb.

* * *

A/N: I have to get props to Sherlock writers, y'all. Writing a full length fic with deductions must be hard AF. Seriously. Y'all are amazing.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione sat in the upstairs flat enjoying tea with her new neighbor and landlady. John was so charming and Mrs. Hudson was such a sweet woman. She smiled into her cup as John and Mrs. Hudson playfully bickered about landlady responsibilities and they all ignored Sherlock, who was resolutely not participating in the conversation.

She could feel his eyes on her from where he sat in his leather chair, legs crossed and fingers steepled against his lower lip. He'd been broodily playing violin in the corner when she'd come in and had ignored her greeting. She brushed off John's apology with a smile and a wave of her hand; the doctor wasn't responsible for his flatmate's rudeness. Thankfully Mrs. Hudson had warned her about Sherlock's eccentricities and moodiness; if she hadn't, Hermione would've been highly offended and probably a bit hurt as well. As it was, she didn't take it personally. He had eyed her during their comings and goings over the two weeks of her residence in 221C, though nothing as thorough as their first meeting. He seemed determined to make up for that this afternoon, however, as he had been gazing across the room at her for the last half hour.

She was making a concerted effort to refuse him the satisfaction of a reaction, but it was difficult to ignore someone when you were hyper-aware of their presence and attention. She just couldn't figure him out. Was he a bully? He didn't feel like one though he certainly wasn't a nice man… she'd heard him through the door being positively sweet to Mrs. Hudson for a moment last week when the elderly woman had thought she'd heard something funny in the back garden. Sherlock had investigated and assured Mrs. Hudson that there was nothing to worry and if there was, he'd be forced to replace her bins again. Though Hermione didn't have the foggiest idea why the promise of new bins would be comforting to the landlady, his tone and her resulting soft laugh were exactly that. Hermione had smiled herself when she heard Mrs. Hudson swat him on his way past her door after a motherly reprimand. No, if anything his offensiveness was due to disinterest than anything deliberately hurtful. So far anyway.

She was laughing at a story John was telling from his clinic hours that afternoon about a 3-year old boy's nose and a small boulder when Sherlock broke in with an abrupt question.

"Is it a knife?" He asked in a tone that clearly conveyed he was irritated at asking.

Hermione and John both glanced at him, nonplussed, and then she turned her gaze to the tabletop in an automatic search for a knife. Mrs. Hudson had already put away the tea dishes… There was a fairly large knife on the mantle pinning a bit of post to it, but she imagined that he'd put it there himself and surely wasn't asking about that one.

"No, clearly not. You aren't surprised or shocked, merely confused by my question. No, I don't want a knife. I'm asking if the weapon you carry is a knife," he stated, sounding frustrated.

John chuckled and glanced at her. "I hardly think Hermione carries a concealed weapon, Sherlock. Why do you ask?"

Sherlock did not immediately respond, and Hermione assumed he was referring to the wand she carried nearly all the time. She had purposefully left it downstairs for this visit though; Sherlock spotting her carrying a bit of wood would be hard to explain indeed. She forced herself to adopt a mildly perplexed expression and meet his gaze evenly. If she could fool Bellatrix Lestrange while nearly incoherent from pain, she could handle the scrutiny of one muggle. Though Bellatrix wasn't nearly as bright as Sherlock…

"You carry it in your left sleeve or your right hip pocket," he said slowly, as if thinking it through again, before musing aloud: "What on earth would you carry that way? Something narrow… thin…"

She only just stopped herself from smoothing down the sleeve on the inside of her left arm. He was always so eerily accurate.

He sounded as though he were merely thinking aloud so she didn't feel it necessary to respond. She added bemused to her expression and broke away from his study to look at John. He was gazing at her in a more appraising manner than he had before, evidently used to Sherlock's deductions being correct. She lifted her hands, palms up, and said "I've never cared for knives," her involuntary shudder at the thought proved her truthful, "and I've never seen a gun except on the telly." John nodded slowly and turned as if to confirm the statement with Sherlock- who hadn't moved a bit but for a narrowing of his eyes. Sherlock's lack of protest seemed to be enough for John. He shrugged and continued his story.

Sherlock eventually turned away to go to his microscope in the kitchen and she breathed a small sigh of relief. He was still at it when she bid them good afternoon and did not deign to reply to her goodbye.

Hermione hummed softly to herself on her way home from Tesco the next afternoon, anticipating putting the groceries in her bag together into her favorite dinner.

The first time she noticed the phone in the booth ringing she thought it odd; someone must have the wrong number. At the second phone booth, she wondered what the odds of that were as she subconsciously picked up her pace. A third phone ringing, where she was stuck waiting at the crossing, was uncanny. She stared at it as it kept ringing. Perhaps it was just an odd system malfunction? Maybe there was maintenance being done on the lines? She'd just answer it and satisfy her curiosity; it would probably disconnect when she answered, or she'd hear a busy signal.

Instead the unctuous voice that practically oozed "Miss Granger" into her ear made a knot of fear curl in her stomach as it hadn't since the Battle of Hogwarts. How in the world could someone know what phone booth she was passing? She gripped the phone more tightly in her suddenly sweaty hand. Should she throw the phone down and run? Wait and see what he wanted?

"Look to your left, do you see the camera?" There was no way she could resist looking; she did she saw the camera swivel away from her to aim toward the intersection. "And to your right." She searched for a moment before she found a second camera that was also turning away. Her hair stood on end at the implication: _I am in control. I can do anything I want to you and there will be no record._

She had nearly decided that she was going to run for it when the oily voice spoke again "Get into the car, Miss Granger." Sure enough, a shiny black car slowed at the kerb and the backdoor opened. No light illuminated the interior.

Suddenly a lecture from a police officer in primary school came back to her. The officer had been giving a safety talk that had scared them all half to death. "Remember," he'd said, "nothing they can do to you on the sidewalk can be worse than what they can do in a car or anywhere else they take you." She supposed that the scare-tactic had worked: she'd never forgotten that lesson. Remembering what _had_ happened the times she had been taken somewhere against her will reinforced her desire to _not_ get into that car.

She cleared her throat. "No, thank you." Her voice only betrayed a fraction of the fear she was trying to shove down beneath her Gryffindor courage. She hung up the phone and stepped back on to the pavement, walked quickly but calmly to the most brightly lit store in her immediate area, hoping against hope that no one would spring out of the car and grab her and slipped inside. She counted her blessings that it was so close as she made it through the door. Her eyes scanned the back of the store for a second exit. There had to be one; fire code required a safe second exit. She quickly weaved her way through the racks of designer clothes toward the door that said staff only, but also displayed the red EXIT sign over it. Trying to display a confident 'yes I'm supposed to be here' face she pushed open the door and startled a manager working at a desk only a few feet away.

"Ex-boyfriend," she managed to say with a grimace as she pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. "With his new girlfriend. Can I just pop out the back?"

The woman nodded sympathetically. "Sure dear, past the shelf, around to the right."

Hermione thanked her and hurried to follow her directions, casting a Disillusionment charm on herself after a quick look revealed a security camera only pointed to the stockroom, leaving the dark exit free of surveillance. She quickly slipped out the backdoor into the alley and slowly crept closer to the street. She could see a camera panning slowly up and the sidewalk. Was it looking for her? Checking to assure she was alone in the alley, she Disaparated without any answers.

Hermione spent an hour or so taking a meandering and vigilant path back to Baker Street after leaving the Apparition point she'd picked at random. She'd hidden in another alley as she changed the cut and color of her jumper, transfigured her gloves into a knitted hat and scarf to hide her hair and face. She changed her grocery bag into a backpack and a pen into a large pair of glasses. Thankful that the weather allowed her to hunch her shoulders against the chill and keep her face buried in her scarf, she set out, taking the tube for a part of the journey, a cab in a random direction until the meter read five quid (which didn't take long), and walking the rest of the way back to Baker Street using a map, hoping to come off as a tourist.

She tried her best not to panic as she attempted to determine who had been on the phone, or why and how they'd tracked her down like that. She tried not to let familiar feeling of pursuit come over her and reminded herself that the war was over; she was safe. Should she text Harry and tell him something was up? No, he'd just worry. She wasn't even sure what she'd say! _Hi Harry… erm. Someone rang me on a public phone…_

She was grateful when she reached the familiar black door of 221 and refused to give the CCTV man the satisfaction of looking over her shoulder for a camera should he be watching. The hair standing up on her neck told her that he probably was. At least she'd made it home without attracting his attention; surely if he'd made her from the CCTV cameras he'd have intercepted her before she made it home.

She locked the door behind her and turned to find herself under observation, not from Creepy Voice Man but from Sherlock. She started and pressed her hand to her heart, which had had quite the work out from adrenaline today.

"Oh! You scared me, Sherlock!" She said in a rush, pulling her scarf away from her heated face. "What are you doing standing there?" He was eyeing her critically, as per usual.

"Waiting for John to get dressed so WE CAN GO TO SCOTLAND YARD, OR I'M GOING WITHOUT HIM!" He bellowed back over his shoulder with a smirk. They both grinned at John's muffled but colorful response. Sherlock took a couple steps closer as his eyes narrowed.

"Are you… in disguise?" He looked her up and down, actually taking her shoulder and turning her around. He looked almost gleeful at the prospect that she was up to something. "Different bag… awful hat, enormous scarf… those are definitely not your glasses. The cut of that jumper adds at least twelve pounds; you know that as your clothes are nearly always a flattering cut, even if cheaply made."

"Careful there, that was nearly a compliment," she teased, hoping to derail him from further deduction.

He flicked her comment away and continued despite her feeble attempt. "You're nervous about something…" His eyes narrowed further and he focused on her face. "Did someone follow you?"

"What? Someone followed Hermione?" John asked with a frown as he came down the stairs, donning his coat.

"No, nothing like that. I don't think," she said hastily, not really wanting this attention at all. She had handled it fairly well after all, she thought. Plus, it wasn't as though she could explain to them how she's engineered her escape from Creepy Voice Man.

John stopped next to Sherlock and examined her with his Captain Watson face on. "Seriously, Hermione, did someone bother you?"

"No, no one followed me." She said firmly.

Sherlock hummed in his throat. "Made sure of that, didn't you?" He smirked as though he knew a secret. "Good girl," he said, and popped his collar. "Come along, John. We have two bodies and three heads awaiting us. Hermione can clearly take care of herself!" He added when John tried to protest.

She tried to smile reassuringly at John as he was dragged sputtering out the door by Sherlock. What a bizarre day! Though Sherlock's surprising praise and John's worry did make her feel a bit better about things. Pondering that strange thought, she let herself into her blessedly empty flat to finally get to that dinner she'd been looking forward to.

A week later, Hermione had overcome her dread of coming and going from Baker Street. The thought of simply Flooing into the Ministry was tempting, but with the Most Observant Man Alive living upstairs, she had to come and go as normally as possible. Plus, she refused to allow anyone to scare her anymore. She'd survived the special attentions of Bellatrix Lestrange, she could certainly brush off an encounter with a creepy muggle. Hopefully he was a muggle. Surely he wouldn't have used the phones and a car if he was a wizard…

It seems she had lulled herself into a false sense of security- which was undoubtedly his intention- because a sharply dressed man fell into step with her as she turned the corner onto Baker Street. "You are a unique individual, Miss Granger." The man spoke in that unctuous tone that grated her nerves. The sidewalk teemed with people; she would make an unholy scene if he so much as sneezed on her. "I must admit you are the only person who has declined my request for a meeting."

She decided not to answer; she wasn't going to play games with someone who had enough power to control the CCTV system.

They came to a stop outside 221 and she finally turned and met his stare head on. He had a sneering sort of face. "How do you find it, sharing a house with Sherlock Holmes?" He asked, scrutinizing her again. The penetrating gaze was familiar…

The question about Sherlock was surprising; was he on some kind of watch list? "I find it perfectly acceptable," she responded, and he looked up and met her eyes with an expression that showed polite disbelief.

A black car glided silently to the kerb and idled behind Creepy Voice and he smirked unkindly at her as her eyes followed its movement. She snapped her gaze back to him, awaiting his next move. There was no way she was getting into that car.

"You don't seem very frightened," he said, sounding ever-so-slightly irritated.

As she was 99% certain this man was a muggle, she had to admit that she was only slightly afraid of him. Creeped out? Certainly. Though he couldn't kill her with a quick curse, he was clearly dangerous. Or at least thought of himself that way.

"You don't frighten me," she replied simply. She was quite sure that she could Disapparate before anything could be done to her. Or Stun him if it came to that.

After a brief pause and more scrutiny he continued, "A single young woman living on her own in the center of London…. It must be difficult making ends meet."

A statement that rude didn't necessitate a response so she continued to stare at him. Tall, perfectly tailored clothes, rude to the point of offensive, inquiring after Sherlock… Oh. Really?

"I assure you, Mr. Holmes, I'm perfectly fine." He blinked and she knew she was correct. "Good afternoon." She swiveled on her heel and left him standing on the sidewalk, smothering a grin as the adrenaline made her slightly giddy. Sherlock's brother was creepy, no doubt, but she wasn't afraid that someone was after her or that a dark wizard has somehow gotten some power in the muggle world now that she knew who he was.

She would definitely have to ask John about him the next time she got him alone, though.

a/n: another little bit of fun in this world. I don't have a destination in mind for this story, these bits just keep popping into my head... hope you enjoy!


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